The day will come when the greatness of nations will be judged not by the strength of their military, nor by the splendour of their cities and bridges, but by the priority that they give to the most vulnerable members of society – its children and the opportunity to each and every child to develop

to its full potential.

  Erzhan Kazykhanov

Dalit children are victimized due to the frustrated, exploited socio-economic conditions and the power structure of the society. Dalit children are having the background of poor parenting poverty, ignorance, child abuse and poor schooling. Most of the Dalit children are the first generation learners. They are having less motivation in studies due to poor parental support on education. Instead of education becomes a privilege for the children, it becomes a burden to the children due to the following reasons:

• Lack of social support for the Dalit children’s education.

• Frequent failures in the subjects like Mathematics, Natural Science and English due to lack of coaching at home.

• Teacher’s comparison of Dalit children with non-dalit children at school.

• Social isolation / segregation due to untouchability and casteism.

• Existence of child labour as a symbol of poverty reduction at home.

• Utilizing the school going children for earning livelihood through.

• Working in the farm land.

• Taking care of the sheeps / sheeps rearing.

• Taking care of younger children – child rearing.

• Existence of the exploitative forces in the school and at the society.

The child of the widows, destitute parents and the orphan children’s education is a question and often it is forbidden to them.

Quality education is not given to Dalit children, especially for poor children and dropout children. The upper section of the society is providing quality education in the form of:

• Proper parenting

• Individual attention to the children

• Positive relationship between teacher and students.

• Opportunities to participate in many events / competitions and developing the confidence level

• Special coaching to improve the talents.

• Creating conducive climate for the overall holistic development of children.

All such above privileges and opportunities were forbidden, ignored and not given to Dalit children.

Child labour refers to work undertaken by children below the legal minimum working age. This is based on ILO minimum age convention 1973, No. 138 (ILO 2006a ). The minimum working age is generally 15 (but it could be fixed to 14 by developing countries). A 13 year old teenager may be allowed to take a light job (12 years for developing countries). The minimum age to practice hazardous work for health or safety is 18.

There is a strong gender bias in the Indian culture, which starts with the distribution of the financial resources in the household. There is also a systematic discrimination against girls with respect to the access to the basic needs such as health care, education, and food to some degree. This is revealed in gender differences in indicators such as malnourishment, morbidity, mortality and in adverse female sex ratios. Patriarchal family system establishes men’s leading status. Sons do not only enjoy financial favours in terms of household allowances, but they also inherit most of their parents’ properties. Cultural norms and practices tend to perpetuate the stereotypes of girls being the mainstay support to their ageing parents. For this reason, most parents both in rural and urban areas invest more in sons than in daughters.

According to a census conducted in 2001:

• Literacy rate: 76% for males, 54% for females.

• Infant mortality rate: 63 per 1000 in 2002.

• 145 million children under six were malnourished.

• One girl under 16 is raped every 155th minute.

• One child under 10 is raped every 13th hour.

• An average of one child out of ten is sexually abused at any time.

• About 600 000 to 700 000 children are sexually abused in India
  (Ref. Annai Fatima, Nov. 2006).

• One infant out of 16 dies before the age of 1.

• One child out of 11 dies before he turns 5.

• 35% of the developing world underweight newborns are Indians.

• Every year 2.5 million children die in India.

• One malnourished child out of 3 lives in India.

• The Indian population counts 927 women for 1000 men.

• 19 children out of 100 do not have access to school.

• Around 53% of those who enroll leave school before they complete 8th grade.

• 48% of Schedule Tribe children and 38% of the Scheduled Caste children Dalits are out of school.

• 66 out of 100 children who drop out of the school are girls.

• 65% of girls in India are married by the age of 18 and become mothers soon after. India has the highest number of working children in the World (SOWC 2004).

[1] International Labour Organisation